We're BAAACK!

We're back in the South of France after an amazing vacation to Venice and Croatia.  I'm compiling all the trip details, and will start with a run down of Venice tomorrow.

But in the meantime I'd like to take a second to vent about a client...who will remain "unnamed".

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING more frustrating than non payment from a client. It's always an uncomfortable situation when you appear at their office and basically BEG to be paid.  Only to be answered with, "Oh, I ran out of checks."

Um seriously, this is 2013 and you couldn't pay me because you were out of checks?!?  I call bullshit on that one.  So I answer with, oh well you can always send us a wire transfer.  The response, oh yeah....can you send me your bank details.  I provided them on the spot, only to CONTINUE to wait to be paid.  This is now 2.5 weeks later and we haven't been paid.

This is not to mention the 5-10 emails which I have received requesting work be done in one form or another.  Let me get this straight....you're demanding work and yet you are slacking on payment.  Well, darling I'm going to just "ignore" your emails until payment is resolved.

Slow-to-pay clients always and I mean ALWAYS go to the bottom of the workload list.  So just a pointer to those of you out there who have hired an agency to take care of your website or advertising needs and expect them to pay attention to you and get your work done, then please be sure to pay on time.  Otherwise, I can guaran-fucking-tee that your work will not be completed on time!!

Anywhooo...enough venting.  Is it Friday yet????? Ugh, it's not....ok, enjoy this adorable fox in the meantime!!

Favorite Things about Living in Monaco

So I started to make a list with all of my favorite things about living in Monaco....

-Dogs are allowed everywhere

-Opera / symphony / ballet / vernissage every single night of the week and weekend!

-The beach and the sea

-Fireworks for every occassion (Easter, Christmas, fireworks competition in July, summer, and more!)

-Cafe on every corner

-Now owning a car...taking the bus and public transportation everywhere!

-Learning to live in a small space (sounds strange, but I LOVE this)

-The mountains! Definitely none of those in Miami!

-Learning to listen.  This too sounds strange, but since I don't speak the language I have to listen more and speak less...it's taught me a lot about myself.  It's also a good tool to have, which I'm happy to have developed!

-Learning to live at a slower pace.  My life was one big rush, from one thing to the next in Miami.  Living in Monaco has taught me to slow down, that much is wasted in the rush.  I have learned to enjoy the small moments, and slower pace of life.

-The way that the French & Monegasque think!  Honestly, they do think differently than Americans, which is very refreshing and insightful.

-Dessert.  In Miami, I never ordered dessert or had coffee after dinner.  Here I nearly always take a coffee or dessert or BOTH. Again, I think this goes hand-in-hand with the slower pace of life.

-Wine and champagne.  These were some of my fave things in Miami as well, but they seem to taste better here :)

-Not making plans!  In Miami I had a habit of jamming my weekend with plans, and here we just go with the flow and rarely make plans.  We seem to enjoy the "spur of the moment" things more so here than we ever did in Miami.

I know that there are a million other things....maybe I will publish a "Part 2" in a few months as I continue to think of more things.

4 Years Married

4 years ago today, I married the man of my dreams surrounded by friends and family and loved ones! We've been through a lot together....and I can't wait to see what's next.

Tonight we toast to many more years, more laughter, more adventures, more challenges, more family, and most of all...more of the good stuff. Cheers!

16 Ways To Not Blow My Marriage

So as you all know, I'm obsessed with Pinterest...and I found this gem there today and got to thinking about my own life and my own relationship.

And I realized that some of the things on here, my hubs and I are totally guilty of. Shame on us, and with the wonderful season of lent upon us...I think we will not only work on our relationship with God, but our relationship with eachother!

So in response to Dan's 16 ways be blew his marriage...here are 16 ways that I will try to avoid blowing mine.

1. Don't stop holding hands....ok, check this one we do and do often!

2. Don't stop trying to be attractive. I admit, with the cold and gross weather when I'm home I don't always get myself put together. But this is an easy one that I can fix!!

3. Don't always point out weaknesses. Hmmm, this will be a hard one since David's weakness of procrastination may be impeding our future.  But I guess I can try...

4. Don't stop cooking for eachother...ok, check.  We still do this one as well.

5. Don't yell at your spouse.  Hollering for another cookie from the couch is bad manners, ugh...even with a 50m2 apartment I totally find myself doing this. Having grown up with a younger brother, his job was to do all my dirty work while I lounged languidly (alliteration...yay me) on the couch. I guess I shouldn't make my poor hubs be the slave I made my bro be.  Ok, David, you're getting an upgrade. From now on, I will drag my sorry ass off the couch to get whatever I need**.

**Unless one of the dogs are sitting on my lap, it would be absolutely terrible to disrupt them!!

6. Don't call names. I must sound like a mah-jor bitch because I am constantly nagging on poor David....but I guess I will try to curb that.  But again, I can't help it if he's impossible to deal with sometimes.

7. Don't be stingy with money.  Ok, check...we already do that.  We have our budget and mostly stick to it.  So here we are good!

8. Don't argue in front of kids.  Our fur babies don't understand english, ok that's a lie....they totally do, but they don't mind if we argue. SO we're good here! And hopefully soon, when the stork finally decides to make it all the way to MONACO to drop off our baby, we will definitely NOT argue in front of her.  You hear that Mr. Stork...we will be the best, most amazing, most deserving parents ever.  So how's about you pay us a visit, ok??

9. Don't encourage one anther to skip working out. Check and check...this we totally do not do.  Normally we are trying to encourage one another TO work out.

10. Don't poop with the bathroom door open.  Ok, I'm not even going there...Done and DONE....

11. Don't stop kissing.  Check and check....we smooch everywhere we go. Restaurants, trains, planes, automobiles. HELLO I married a Brazilian, he's totally into the PDA thing!! YAY for moi!

12. Don't pressure one another.  Oh, you mean my expectations of David supporting me fully after having our baby is pressure?  Ok, sorry...I will stop doing that.

13. Don't stop having fun together. Not gonna lie, we're in a rut....it's pretty bad.  I mostly blame it on the weather.  Oh and the fact that we just took a 1 month vacay to the US and Brazil, so funds are pretty tight.  But I'm telling you, if we don't do "something fun" to get out of the house next weekend, I may commit suicide (please all of you serious ppl out there, this is a joke, I value my life WAyyyyyy too much to do something as silly as that). But yea, seriously, we need to do something fun and SOON!

14. Don't label eachother with negative labels.  Ah, that sounds easy enough, even if David is a lazy idiot.  I totally can handle this(again, joking ppl!!)!

15. Don't skip out on things that are important to him. Ok, I won't, wait....what's important to him that I might skip out on?? Hmm, dunno so I'm not going to worry about it!

16. Don't emotionally distance yourself after a fight.  Naw, not us....when we fight big we make up big.  No distance between us here :)

Now that I have my personal business all out there....how's ur relationship measure up to all these things?  Are there some things you should fix?  Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of my relationship.  Not that it's 100% perfect, there's always more work to be put in.  So why not start today?

Long Time No See

I know, I know....I haven't posted in quite some time. But I'm back and here's an update:

End of December, the hubs and I flew to Miami for a long awaited (year-long to be exact) vacay! We spent an amazing week and a half with my parents at their condo in the Keys...Islamorada to be exact. During that time David's parents flew in for 3 days from Kansas to spend some q time with their son...whom they hadn't seen in over 2 years.
Then, on Jan 4 we flew to Brazil for a 10 day visit.  We staying 2 nights in Rio, 5 nights in Buzios and then 3 nights in Sao Paulo.  David's from Brazil, and hadn't been back home in over 10 years.  Mainly because we keep planning out major trips for other amazing places. But FINALLY I was able to see where he was from. Let me tell you...Rio is an amazing city with a vibe that just can not be described.  In Rio we stayed in the area named Santa Teresa, and it was just perfect in every way.  Nice shops, restaurants and bars in the area, plus we felt super safe which is not the case in all of Rio. We did the touristy things like, visited Ipanema and Leblon beaches.
After that we were off to Buzios, which is where I fell in love. The people, the beaches, the weather...everything was just perfect.  It felt like the first time in many years, that I could really breathe.  I didn't have a care in the world, just relaxed and had a romantic getaway with David.
Our final stop in Brazil was Sao Paulo, David's birth place.  Here we stayed at a friends place, and David got to visit with all of his long lost buddies. The city of SP is just so big, and overwhelming we didn't really know what to do, but luckily we had David's friends to show us around. After being away for 10 years David didn't really know what to do, or where to go. The weather took a turn, and was much colder and rainier than I was expecting so we mainly went to the mall, and had coffee breaks...which was nice and gave us a chance to hang and chat with David's friends.
After SP, we flew back to Miami for our last few days to spend with my parents and relax a bit more.

Now that I'm back in Monaco I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting.  I'm missing my friends and family, and the winter weather here has me kind of down. It's so bad that I just looked up flights to go back home.

To be perfectly honest, I think it's a combination of uncertainty at work, struggles getting pregnant and being all alone. I mean, obviously I have David...but sometimes you need more. I'm basically crying as I write this, and sometimes things are hard because then otherwise you wouldn't appreciate the good times but I'm majorly questioning this entire journey.
-Why am I here?
-What is God trying to teach me?
-How am I becoming a better person by going through these difficulties?

Its funny because Monaco and Monte Carlo sounds so glamorous, and I'm sure if I were to tell any stranger that I was unhappy with my move to Monaco they would probably laugh in my face.  People think that Monaco is this wonderland, full of fun and joy and beauty....but the truth is it's full of expats looking for the next best thing, crooks trying to hide money, or billionaires spending loads of money on pathetic material goods that make them even more lonely and more pathetic than they were to start off.

My goal for the day...stop being so negative, and know that everything happens for a reason. I hope I can maintain my sanity in the meantime and not buy this plane ticket home, admitting defeat. Wish me luck....

Last Weekend in October

Happy Monday everyone!
Last weekend we spent in Nice at our friends place, and had a super fun weekend!

Our friends view in Nice!

Friday night we went to Hussard in Olde Town Nice which was very nice. We went with another couple and ordered the appetizer platter to share. Then for my main course I ordered the lamb confit with mashed potatoes.  OMG, it was so good.  The platter had a great mix of burratta cheese, parma ham and foie gras with fig jelly on toast points.  And my lamb was melt in your mouth delicious!  Despite the shit service, we will definitely be going back.  I would rate it a 4 out of 5 stars, and with improved service this could easily be a 5.

After dinner, we ventured over to Akathan Pub just down the street.  Had a couple more glasses of wine while enjoying the live music, then called it a night.

Saturday I spent perusing the antique shops near the Nice Port.  Found this amazing little gem, for just 20€.

Vintage Guerlain parfume bottle!

Saturday night our friends hosted dinner, before going to see James Bond at the cinema.  Great dinner and great movie!  Funny enough my favorite part was sneeking wine into the theatre.

Sunday we got up early to head to Biot's flea market.  What a BUST....it was full of complete junk so we were in and out of there pretty quickly. The weather had turned cold very quickly around 11, so we decided to venture to the Leger museum.  On the way our driver insisted we stop in the forest to go mushroom hunting.  Wow, so happy we stopped....found these amazing Chanterelle mushrooms to go on our steaks for dinner!

Hand picked Chanterelle Mushrooms!

We finally checked out the Fernand Leger museum, which was pretty cool and at just 5€ totally worth it.

Our friends outside the Leger Museum in Biot

Winter has finally arrived in South of France...time to pull out the winter jackets.  Brrrrrrr....dinner tonight with friends visiting from Miami.  YAY!!

Weekend of Oct 20 & 21

Another weekend has come and gone....flown by once again. I can hardly believe that it will be November next week.  Where did October go?

Anyways, here's a run down of our fairly uneventful weekend:

Friday Night - Stayed in to watch some tele. After a late night at a friends dinner party on Thursday we finally recovered and just wanted to lay low.

Saturday - 10am we were off on a hike. Our plan was to take the Garavan trail up to Castellar, enjoy lunch in the village of Castellar and then hike back down.  On the way up the GPS got a bit funny, and we ended up on the 52(cinquante deux) trail, which was a 70% incline where we huffed and puffed our way to the top.  At the top we realized the mistake and found our way back to the originally planned trail to Castellar.  We had packed a picnic lunch and sat and ate and took in the view.  Here are some pics....

Check out that climb...phew

Here is where we realized that we took the wrong trail

Sparky and Lucia hanging out

The view was worth the climb

Near our lunch spot

View from one ridge to Castellar

Some flowers along the way

Saturday evening we took the train to Nice to visit our friends Antoine & Marina.  We were just cracking open the 2nd bottle of wine and their 3 year old had just been put to bed when he called for "Maman" because he had gotten sick.  Poor baby was up all night sick, and there went our evening of drinks and catching up.

Sunday we took the train back into Monaco, and went straight to church. After church was a lovely luncheon where we collected donations for a shelter in Nice. Was home by 3pm and lounged around the rest of the day.

Decor do-over

While I'm stuck at the office, and the time is moving slower than a snail because all I want to do is break out and drink some beers in Munich I've focused my attention to Pinterest and the amazing world of decorating.

For me, a house/apartment/flat/mansion is never fully finished.  Even if you've lived there for years, it's still evolving with the addition of some art here or a new piece of furniture there.

Currently for our apartment in Monaco we are at a standstill because we just spent the last of our budget on random decorations so that when my parents visit next week it doesn't look like we live in a small, scary unfurnished box.  Which is more or less what it looked like prior to the purchases.

But I'm dreaming about the day, who knows when it will be, that we move back into our townhouse in Miami Beach.  Oh, how much I miss our townhouse despite that fact that we're upside down on the mortgage and that my hubby and I nearly divorced fighting over the mortgage payments when we were struggling with our careers 2 years ago.  So for now, our townhouse is occupied by a lovely couple (I'm sure, however I've never met them)....but when we move back I can't wait to get my hands on that place and transform it.

For our living room, I've decided I want a big, cozy, cushy, L-shaped couch to be the anchor of the room. Something like this...although white would be a disaster for our dogs, so maybe a nice grey color:

I even like the layout of the frames, however I do not like the ottoman and the media stand is totally wrong for my industrial loft feeling townhome. Anyways, couch yes love the idea!

Next, for the guest bath.  I love the idea of 2 shower curtains framing the shower!! I'd like to move the door and make it look more like this:

 Next, the master bedroom. I want a big cushy, tall bed and this gorgeous color scheme would be so delightful. It feels so much more grown up than what we had before.  I think it's the pattern the foot stool at the end of the bed really makes a statement. Wow it's so perfect!  Now if only we had this much space.

And a thought for the master bath, not the color but the sink layout:

 
Next our guest room, which was previously our office but will hopefully (o dear God, I pray) be the baby room by the time we move back to Miami. I'm hoping for boys...so I think something like this would be just amazing! And funny enough this is the exact layout of the guest room...I suppose it was meant to be.  Plus, this way we can still use it as a guest room with a fold out couch. Just have the baby sleep in our bedroom in the pack-n-play while the guest is visiting. Love LOVE LOVE this!

Finally, the upstairs patio.  We lived in our townhome for nearly 5 years, and never fully utilized the amazing space on our upstairs patio.  Yes, we had a hot tub which took up 30% of the space, but the other 70% was never furnished.  I will NOT make that mistake when we move back!  Here's my version of what that space will look like(plus, lots of gorgeous pillar candles with melted wax all over the place):

OK, that's all for now.  I will stop by day dreaming and get back to work....only one more hour, I think I can make it until tomorrow (the last work day until Munich).  Au revoir!

Muich Countdown

Happy Monday everyone!  We're off to Munich in just 3 short days, and how am I suppose to work when we plan on checking out all these amazing things:

1. Munich Olympic Stadium
2. Schloss Nymphenburg Palace
3. Neue Pinakothek Art Museum
4. Oktoberfest
5.  Andechs Monastery
6. Dachao Concentration Camp

Think we can fit it all in, plus Michelin Starred dinners and lunches in just 4 short days?  We shall see....CAN NOT WAIT! 

Good Morning Monaco

It's a beautiful Friday morning overlooking Port Hercule in Monte-Carlo.  Happy weekend everyone!